The mediating role of self-efficacy on adults’ return to the mathematics classroom amid abuse and neglect

Abstract

It is envisaged that the number of adult learners in undergraduate programmes will remain stable or increase in the future. To meet the growing demand of adults for undergraduate degrees, some universities in Ghana have mounted sandwich modules. Admittedly, adult students exhibit low efficacy in mathematics learning, and they suffer abuse at the hands of some instructors. Nonetheless, the desire for practising teachers in basic schools in Ghana to pursue undergraduate mathematics education sandwich programmes remains relatively high and stable. This survey, involving the use of adapted scales examined the potential effect of adult students’ abuse and neglect on 250 sandwich adult students’ self-efficacy and learning in mathematics. The study’s results revealed that adult students were abused about 40% of the time, they lost about 15% of their mathematics learning but had a strong level of self-efficacy. As expected, the result showed that increasing adult abuse decreased their mathematics learning and reduced their efficacy to study mathematics. Although the adult students’ self-efficacy marginally reduced the level of learning loss which was perhaps occasioned by adult abuse, a partial mediation result was established. It was concluded that mathematics instructors strive to minimise abusive learning environments to promote mathematics learning gains and self-efficacy among adult students.